A jacket for all seasons

A postgraduate in Mechanical Engineering and Technology Policy Program from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Kranthi Kiran Vistakula’s ‘heat exchange’ technology called ClimaCon has won him the Innovator of the Year honour from Technology Review India.

“While pursuing my Masters at MIT,I found the process of putting on and taking off additional layers of clothing in winter very cumbersome. To overcome this,I started working on developing a jacket with the capacity to both heat and cool.

“I put the Peltier effect into application for achieving this,” says Vistakula. The Peltier effect is a phenomenon discovered in 1834 by J C A Peltier,who found that at the junction of two dissimilar metals carrying a small current the temperature rises or falls,depending upon the direction of the current.

“But it was easier said than done,” says Vistakula who realised that a new technology would have to be developed to make the jacket lightweight.

“I had to work on developing a new heat exchanger or heat sink in order to keep the jacket light. After three years of effort and experimentation,the weight of the jacket now stands at just 650 grams,almost equivalent to the weight of a regular pair of jeans,” Vistakula says proudly.

“The jacket can be worn and carried like a normal jacket with up to eight hours of performance on a single charge of batteries. It can also be cleaned and cared for like normal jackets,” explains Vistakula.

His ‘heat exchange’ technology also has applications beyond clothes,finding uses in infant incubators and cooling large spaces such as auditoriums. The heat exchanger was designed to make use of the breakage of hydrogen bonds for the dissipation of heat rather than the conventional methods of using a fan or cooled liquid for heat removal. A hydrogen bond self-recharging nanomaterial was used to work in extreme conditions.

Harshal Shah,CEO of Reliance Technology Ventures Limited,that has invested in Vistakula’s venture,Dhama

Apparel Innovations claimed that “Dhama’s products are more efficient and lightweight as compared to its competitors like Texas cool vest,Arctic heat,and Frisby technologies.”

He said the Dhama’s product team was also working closely with the army to develop a solution for heating/cooling missiles which will increase performance and reduce tangible and intangible costs.

Vistakula was awarded the ‘Innovator of the Year’ title at the Emerging Technologies Conference,EmTech India which was held in Bangalore on March 8.